WHAT'S WRONG WITH JAZZ TODAY

Strong words from saxophonist Branford Marsalis, Wyton's elder brother, and former Jay Leno sidekick:

He laments that jazz players no longer appreciate the deep pleasures of melody and rhythms that makes listeners dance, even in if it’s just in their heads. He also says that today’s jazzers "are completely devoid of charisma. People never really liked the music in the first place. So now you have musicians who are proficient at playing instruments, and people sit there, and it’s just boring to them — because they’re trying to see something, or feel it."

Sadly, there's a lot of truth in what he says. Whether his group is helping to solve the problem is another matter. I didn't feel the urge to hear them at Ronnie Scott's this week. Evening Standard critic Jack Massarik went along, and didn't like what he heard: "Clever, but what's the point?"  [Hey, Jack, the subs have used the wrong photo. That looks more like Soweto Kinch to me.]

MORE James Hamilton e-mails:

Branford's comments echo those of Philip Larkin and Hugues Panassié. Larkin saw jazz as having gone, artistically, from Lascaux to Pound and Picasso in (x) years, whereas Branford looks about in vain for artists with the charisma and drive of that very same Pound and Picasso.

If it weren't for the fact that both Larkin and Panassie are as hung up on the race element in this as they are the music, there'd be an interesting point to be made there about the changes time and death bring about in musical taste and appreciation. Larkin hated Coltrane in the early '60s. Now, taking Coltrane out of the early '60s would be like taking Dickens out of 1850s London and - in Larkin's terms - replacing him with, oh, I don't know, Dryden.